South African flying training
This is exactly what I did a few years back, and had the absolute time of my life.
APTRAC in PE is a good option. It's a lovely place to train - right on the coast, international airport, with good aircraft. I trained at 43 Air School, which is about 100 miles down the coast in Port Alfred. I can't recommend 43 enough. I think it might be slightly more expensive, but also has good accommodation and food on site, loads of aircraft, good instructors etc. Also, there are decent schools which are cheaper up in johannesburg and pretoria.
In terms of converting your license, it should be simple. The SA CAA License is fully ICAO, and therefore you can use it to fly in the states anyway. If you did want to convert, it would be a case of writing your air law and human performance exams, and doing an FAA flight test. The SA PPL exams are actually pretty tough, so the US equivilent won't be any harder.
A couple of words of warning though.
Firstly, you won't complete your PPL in the 45 hours quoted. Assuming you don't have to retake any lessons, and pass every test perfectly, you still have to account for external factors. If your lessons creep over the alloted time, then the hours build up very quickly. Instead of doing an hour lesson, you might be flying for an hour and 15 mins. Also, sometimes you can get airborne, the weather changes and have to cut your lesson short, which will result in you having to re-do the lesson. So many factors increase your hours, and also the time you'd be at the flying school. If you have a couple of weeks of bad weather, you'll have to pay for an extra couple of weeks of accommodation and food.
Lastly, in terms of costs, I was fully fed and housed, and still managed to spend plenty of money on food and other things. You'll probably eat out more than once a week, and all the other little expenses add up quickly.
Conclusion: Go for it! just be wary that the initial cost will increase, no matter how good at flying you are.
ZS-PTU